Iran Sending Warships Close to US Borders

[Shah-i-Kot]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...rders-22424767


Iran Sending Warships Close to US Borders

TEHRAN, Iran February 8, 2014 (AP)









A senior Iranian naval commander says his country has sent several warships to the Atlantic Ocean, close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time.
The commander of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, is quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Saturday that the vessels have already begun the journey to the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa.
Iranian officials said last month that the fleet consisted of a destroyer and a logistic helicopter carrier, which will be on a three-month mission.
Haddad says the fleet is approaching U.S. maritime borders for the first time. The Islamic Republic considers the move as a response to U.S. naval deployments near its own coastlines. The U.S. Navy's 5th fleet is based in nearby Bahrain.

[Shah-i-Kot]

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Iranian-warships-approach-US-maritime-borders-340776

Iranian warships approach US maritime borders

By JPOST.COM STAFF
02/08/2014 19:15












Iranian naval fleets were on their way across the Atlantic Ocean, reported Tehran's semi-official news agency Fars on Saturday.

"Iran's military fleet is approaching the United States' maritime borders, and this move has a message," Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet was quoted as saying.

According to Fars, Iran had first warned the US of its plans to deploy its naval forces along US marine borders "in the next few years" in September 2012. Then, Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said that the move would counter US presence in its waters in the Persian Gulf.

Fars first reported on an Iranian Navy fleet of warships making its way across the Atlantic Ocean in January 2014. At the time, they reported that the ships would sail for at least three months.

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

Brave leadership indeed

[Shah-i-Kot]

Iran says warships to approach US borders

Iran says warships to approach US borders

Commander quoted by semi-official news agency as saying the deployment is a response to US exercises in the Gulf.

Last updated: 09 Feb 2014 10:34


An Iranian naval officer has said a number of warships had been ordered to approach US maritime borders as a response to the stationing of US vessels in the Gulf, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
"Iran's military fleet is approaching the United States' maritime borders, and this move has a message," the agency quoted Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad as saying on Saturday.
Haddad, who is described as the commander of the Iranian navy's northern fleet, said the vessels had started their voyage
towards the Atlantic Ocean via "waters near South Africa", Fars reported.
Fars said the plan was part of "Iran's response to Washington's beefed up naval presence in the Persian Gulf".
The report, which carried no details of the vessels, could not be confirmed independently.
The Reuters news agency quoted an anonymous US defence official as casting doubt on the Iranian claims.
But the official added that "ships are free to operate in international waters".
The US and regularlys stage naval exercises in the Gulf, saying it wants to ensure freedom of navigation in the waterway, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports passes.
The US bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
Iranian officials have often said Iran could block the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Gulf, if it was attacked over its disputed nuclear programme.
Fars said the Iranian navy had been developing its presence in international waters since 2010, regularly deploying vessels in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.
Missile tests
Hard-line Iranian MPs meanwhile have accused the president, Hassan Rouhani, of halting a scheduled missile exercise, the state news agency said Sunday.
IRNA reported that 24 members of parliament said in a statement that the Supreme National Security Council, headed by the president, stopped the annual test and did not approve its budget.
Hard-liners are at odds with Rouhani and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, over their policy of outreach to the West.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/02/iran-says-warships-sailing-towards-us-borders-20142942033302719.html

[Shah-i-Kot]

The conclusion to be drawn here is that Iran will be staying near the US coast (in international waters) for quite some time- perhaps for as long as the nuclear negotiations are going on (whether they are successful or unsuccessful). Iran will probably send more navy fleets, and rotate (as the US does in the Gulf). The reasoning is to pressure the US (and West) into accepting a nuclear Iran, and all its other demands (to lift all EU sanctions)

This Iranian strategy of war threats has so far worked. The fact that the US Administration has threatened to veto Congressional sanctions simply to ensure that Iran does not walk away from nuclear talks- is symbolic of US decline and weakness. Iran continues to play up the threat of war- and walking away from nuclear talks - and continues to go ahead with plans to become nuclear.

Iran's war rhetoric cant be brushed aside when one considers the fact that the US desperately sought the talks in the first place, and will veto congressional sanctions to save the diplomacy. If the US military option was a serious consideration, there would never have been nuclear talks in the first place (US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya are proof for that). It is in fact a reluctant option because it comes with heavy risks and uncertainty (outlined by top US officials)